From his headquarters in North Lake, Illinois, Perry Mandera oversees operations at The Custom Companies, Inc., as the company’s president. In this role, he leverages over three decades of experience in the shipping, logistics, and transportation industries. Beyond his work, Perry Mandera supports several charitable organizations, including the Walter and Connie Payton Foundation (WCPF), which aims to provide stability to the less fortunate.

Among the WCPF’s programs is its School Supply Drive, which tasks supporters with gathering essential school supplies for the WCPF so the organization can deliver them to schools and the families of children in Illinois who make individual requests. Those wishing to help the organization by arranging a drive must fill out an application form and send it to the WCPF, which will then provide the individual with a range of tools and items to help them plan and operate the drive.

Upon completion of a drive, WCPF representatives arrive to collect the donated items and take them to the WCPF warehouse, where it fills backpacks with supplies for later distribution. Further, the WCPF accepts monetary donations to the School Supply Drive program in the form of checks mailed to the foundation, or via credit card at www.payton34.com.

​Perry Mandera guides The Custom Companies, Inc., an enterprise that he built from the ground up into one of the country’s leading transportation providers. Among the corporate divisions Perry Mandera directs is the Intermodal Department. As featured in a company newsletter, intermodal services are vital in ensuring that customer costs are kept to an absolute minimum.

An alternative transportation mode, intermodal shipping involves partnering with respected service providers, including Union Pacific Streamline and Schneider National, which have the capacity to deliver throughout North America. In addition to price, a key advantage of intermodal delivery is flexibility in transportation, with options ranging from 20-foot containers to 53-foot containers.

Custom’s intermodal partners handle a full range of commodities, including machinery, food items, and hazardous materials. One popular option involves expedited Chicago-to-Los Angeles delivery within three days, and features such as drop-and-hook and drayage are available as requested. All deliveries and pickups are handled by reliable and friendly local CDN Logistics drivers.

Based in Chicago, Perry Mandera heads The Custom Companies, Inc., and provides a host of coordinated transportation services nationwide. Over the past three decades, Perry Mandera’s enterprise has expanded dramatically from five employees to more than 600, and his company has grown to encompass facilities in diverse regions of the country.

One of the major hubs beyond the Northlake, Illinois, corporate offices is in the Los Angeles Basin, where The Custom Companies have consistently increased market share in recent years. Recognizing this, Custom University courses have been offered on the West Coast to help team members gain a well-rounded knowledge of different aspects of company operations.

Attendees described the classes as providing a highly interactive experience that actively engages them in learning and problem solving. Recommendations and critiques by participants are used continually to refine the curriculum and find ways of enhancing overall operations. Attendees also had the opportunity to experience a Sunday brunch cruise on a yacht that embarked from Newport Beach.

Perry Mandera is a respected Chicago business leader who founded The Custom Companies, Inc., in the 1980s and has grown it into a leading provider of commercial transportation solutions. Perry Mandera maintains a strong community focus and takes pride in his team of dedicated professionals.

A Custom Companies newsletter celebrated Labor Day and the workers’ achievements enshrined by the holiday in America. The origins of the day reach back more than 100 years and have origins in the concept of International Association of Machinists Local 344 secretary, Matthew Maguire, who was employed in Paterson, New Jersey. This idea of a formal day to honor labor was adopted by the Central Labor Union and came to fruition on September 5, 1882.

The state of Oregon was the first to adopt a Labor Day holiday in 1887 and this was followed by several more states, to the point where the U.S. Congress made it a national holiday in 1894. The holiday continues to this day as a potent reminder of the strength of workers who together unite and create a productive workplace that embraces dignity and freedom.

President of The Custom Companies, Inc., Perry Mandera is an innovator in the transportation sector who brings more than three decades of experience to his work with the Illinois-based company. Since its founding in 1986, the work of Perry Mandera and his team has grown the firm to the point where it now achieves more than $200 million in annual sales.

To facilitate this growth, the company has invested in technological enhancements to serve clients, including its web services, which have been created in accordance with feedback the company has received from its customers.

Technologies built into its website allow customers to track and trace deliveries in real time, in addition to an analytics package that includes more comprehensive details relating to shipments, such as destinations and time period requests. The site also offers the ability to download customized reports, make bill of lading requests and receive quotes for the company’s services.

​A veteran business executive, Perry Mandera leverages more than 30 years of experience to the benefit of The Custom Companies, Inc., a transportation company he serves as president. Prior to establishing his reputation in business, Perry Mandera served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, where he attained the rank of private first class before receiving his honorable discharge in 1979.

New recruits to the Marines are expected to undertake the Initial Strength Test (IST), which is made up of three components.

1. Pull-Ups. Recruits can mount the bar with their hands facing toward or away from them; however, they are not allowed raise their legs above the waist. A repetition is completed by bending the arms and pulling up until the chin goes above the bar, then lowering until arms are straight. Recruits are required to complete two repetitions at minimum.

2. Crunches. The recruit lies on his or her back with feet planted on the ground and knees flexed. The arms are crossed on the chest, with no gap allowed between chest and forearm. The upper body must then be raised a minimum of 44 times in two minutes, with the recruits’ forearms touching their thighs each time.

3. Timed Run. Male recruits are expected to complete a 1.5-mile run in 13:30, while female recruits are granted 15 minutes.

A dedicated contributor to his community, The Custom Companies’ leader Perry Mandera maintains an active involvement in a broad array of charitable activities. Perry Mandera is responsible for launching a charitable arm of his company under the name Custom Care Charities.

Custom Care Charities operates with a focus on giving back to the community and the concepts of “paying it forward” and doing the right thing for others. Its efforts support community and nonprofit entities with goals that align with the Custom Care mission, in addition to individuals in need. The list of charities and beneficiaries includes many that provide services or assistance to abused, disadvantaged, or underprivileged children. Furthermore, Custom Care handles a variety of charitable endeavors during the winter holiday season, such as toy drives and fundraisers.

The organization supports 42 nonprofits in total, such as the Arthritis Foundation, the Avon Breast Cancer Walk, Special Olympics, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Organizations benefitting children that Custom Care supports include the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America, Mercy Home for Boys & Girls, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The Custom Companies’ president Perry Mandera leads the Northlake, Illinois-based firm with over 30 years of experience in the transportation industry, and has driven its annual sales to exceed $200 million since its launch in 1986. In order to keep up with shifting industry trends toward three-dimensional (3D) freight systems, Perry Mandera’s company introduced dimensioning technology.

The trucking industry is moving away from the conventional class-based structure used for Less-than-Truckload (LTL) shipments and migrating to a system based on the freight’s 3D characteristics. Advanced 3D imaging captures pictures of shipments from various angles and uses the images to calculate the volume in cubic feet, enabling shippers to more efficiently utilize cargo space. Moreover, dimensional scanning decreases the number of truckloads, leading to a greener industry.

The Custom Companies began implementing dimensional technologies in its Chicago and Los Angeles terminals in 2015. The scanning system takes pictures of freight placed under a ceiling scanner and provides a single overhead image and four side-views in addition to cubic-foot calculations. Images also display time, date, and bounding box as well as dimensions.

Perry Mandera is a well-established Illinois entrepreneur who leads the Northlake-headquartered Custom Companies, Inc., which provides quality transportation services across North America. In early 2016, Perry Mandera’s enterprise launched the third generation of its defining Custom University educational curriculum.

The aim of the program is to instill in students a sense of camaraderie and team focus, which have been integral to corporate expansion efforts over the past 30 years. Guiding the curriculum are executives Anthony Crespo and Robert Heinz, with the latter describing the core message as one of exceeding customer expectations “before our competitors do.”

A particular emphasis is on defining and expanding connections between the various operating companies that make up Custom Companies, Inc., and ensuring that a unified corporate culture is in place. Another aspect of the curriculum involves exploring how ISO standards work and how employing them can improve operational effectiveness. Other educational elements include Employee Engagement and Custom Culture.

A respected Chicago business leader, Perry Mandera directs The Custom Companies, Inc., as its founder. Emphasizing a close connection between his organization and the local community, Perry Mandera has guided corporate contributions to several nonprofits.

One aspect of this is that Mr. Mandera sends emails to employees within The Custom Companies family each year. He encourages people to tell him of families that are facing serious situations of financial need. Stories sent describe their needs and how their burden could be lifted financially during the holiday season.

The stories Mr. Mandera receives allow him to distribute checks through Custom Cares Charities, Inc., to individuals and families in need that will benefit most from charitable giving.

Additionally, many employees donated the extra lunchtime hours they accrued in October and wore pink each Friday. This helped raise money for breast cancer research and enabled Custom Cares Charities to send a check for $5,000 to the Susan G. Komen fund.